This is a collection of essays by Cui Weiping, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy. The title, inspired by Hannah Arendt, covers a wide range of fields from poetry and movies to politics and ethics, and tells the stories of fascinating people, the construction of their inner world and external lives. These people include Hai Zi, Wang Xiaobo, Arendt, Woolf, Beauvoir, Tarkovsky, Kremer, Herbert, Havel, and many others. Behind these seemingly unrelated names, there are hints of these two interdependent spiritual dimensions: on the one hand, the construction of the external world in which we live; on the other hand, the construction of our own inner world, which cannot be neglected. This book, published by Renmin University of China Press in 2003, has had a significant impact on the development of civil society in China.
On May 12, 2008, when the Great Sichuan Earthquake struck, writer Liao Yiwu began to write "Chronicle of the Great Earthquake", which was serialized in <i>Democratic China</i> and reprinted on several Chinese websites. It had a wide impact. Liao went to Dujiangyan, Juyuan Township, Yingxiu and other earthquake-hit areas to conduct on-the-spot interviews. His travels and writings during the earthquake were reported and translated by many mainstream media.
In April 2009, Taiwan's Asian Culture Publishing published and distributed the traditional Chinese edition of <i>Earthquake Insane Asylum</i>, a pictorial and textual factual record that preserves the living conditions of the people during of the Sichuan earthquake.
Land reform is one of the important events that affected the course of Chinese history in the twentieth century. Liao Yiwu spent two years on and off from the end of 2005 to complete <i>The Last Landlord</i>. The book comprises interviews with land reform survivors. As the author says, "Based on the degree of physical and mental weakening of the interviewees, I estimate that in another five or six years, the history of the land reform as orally told by those who witnessed it will be completely untraceable."
The Xi’an-based videographer Zhang Shihe, or Tiger Temple, has been a fixture on the independent Chinese history scene for more than twenty years. In 2010, he began a thirty-part series of short interviews with leading Chinese thinkers called “Working Toward Civil Society,” in which he explores how China can build a true civil society. Some of those interviewed have now been silenced, passed away, or moved abroad, making the series itself a work of history.
In this episode, Zhang interviews one of China’s most thoughtful public thinkers, Cui Weiping. Cui is a professor at the Beijing Film Academy, and translator of Havel into Chinese. She was a signer of Charter 08, and friend of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. Although the interview is only 8 minutes long, Cui touches on some of the key problems that continue to plague China: how to break free of overwhelming government control of civic life?
Note to English speakers: this interview only has Chinese subtitles. The CUA is working to add English subtitles to all of our video offerings so check back in a few months.
This is a record and index of major feminist events in China between 2020 and 2023. The document consists of more than 2,000 pages, in which 122 topics/events related to feminism have been curated. The document is divided into five chapters: “Feminism in the Public Eye ”, “Feminism in Individual Cases”, “Feminism in the Law”, “Feminist Activism,” and “Three Special Years - Feminism amid COVID-19”.
Each event entry is divided into two parts: event summary and related articles The first part aims to provide a complete and objective overview of the event, using first-hand materials when possible; the second part collects media reports and commentaries on the event published through public media outlets and social media platforms.
This document covers a wide range of topics/events, including but not limited to commercial surrogacy, gender discrimination in higher education, China’s population policy and the reproductive rights of women, misogynistic culture in the media, the progress and challenges of the #Metoo movement, legal analysis of law and policies concerning feminist issues, and feminist activism.
The editorial group introduced their intention as follows in the document’s introduction:
“This document, though imperfect, is an attempt to contribute to the writing of the history of Chinese feminism - history is the road we are walking at the moment, and we've come a long way, still searching for answers hidden in the thick fog. ”
“We hope that this document will not only serve as a tool, but also provide the reader with wisdom and strength.”